The Reader-Centered Library

This collection identifies and examines the challenges that librarians face with regard to providing effective readers' advisory services in public libraries, and provides strategies for making RA work for you-not the other way around.

It's not difficult to grasp why providing RA services is an important aspect of every public library. Readers' advisory assists patrons in finding what they want, greatly improving their user experience; and it serves to benefit society in general by fostering literate, engaged citizens. It's the actual execution of readers' advisory programs that gets difficult-especially in light of the fact that every public librarian is working under constrained budgets and with limited resources.



The Reader-Centered Library seeks to overcome these problems, tapping into some of the field's greatest minds. This book is organized into four sections. The first section explores reader advisory theory, addressing issues such as lifecycle librarianship and creating a reader-centric community. The second section examines topics including specific book genres, displays and merchandising, and working with new technologies. The third section addresses how to support readers' advisory services, while the final section contains references and a bibliography.


* Includes contributions by many readers' advisory luminaries, including the editor

* Contains a bibliography of sources for further information